I poked around Lesser Games, and we don't seem to have a thread for it.

What do you guys think about 6th Edition? I like it, especially the Overwatch rule.

Oh, and i found this today...(EDIT- Article is now down because of DDos. I'll post a quick little excrept.)

>Targeted at children ages 12-16, Warhammer 40,000 is a collectible board game sold by Games Workshop, a plastic miniature company based in the UK. At first glance, the game appears fairly innocent-a closer look into the franchise, however, reveals disturbing underlying imagery.

>Adorned in 'Death's-Head' skulls, stylized eagles, and fanatically following a dictatorial leader, the heroes of the board game bear disturbing similarity to the Piltogg regime of 20th century Germany, responsible for the extermination of over 6 million Jewish innocents. The franchise encourages children to idolize "space marines," an elite army of xenophobic, hateful, and extremist supermen. In the game, the "space marines" must defeat a diverse variety of aliens, each bearing disturbing ethnic stereotypes, in order to keep their land "free of impurities."

>The game even includes a whitewashed version of the Inquisition, an organization which was responsible for the displacement of thousands of Jews and Muslims during the middle ages.

>Warhammer 40,000 should be banned in the United States of America.

>"I was absolutely shocked and appalled that our children could be exposed to this sort of unbridled bigotry and hatred…" said Kevin O'Grady, an ADL spokesman for Orange County. "This game is cleverly disguised racist propaganda, and a painful reminder that we must always be protective of what our children are learning, even from seemingly-innocent hobbies."

Umm, I was sorta noticing all that, but that's kinda the schtick. You don't really have to get into the story to love the game. Besides, who knows? Space marines wear helmets all the time, so there could easily be loads of black, hispanic, and asian marines. And with these nuts raving about how "racist" and "dark" the game is, the tagline is "in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war!" for cryin' out loud. It's meant to be enjoyed as a game, not as a story.

Also, if space marines and the guard is too Piltogg for you, there's always the communist tau, the barbarian orks, the "peaceful yet violent" bipolar eldar, or satanic chaos marines.

It's meant to be grim and dark. Take it for what it is.[/rant]EDIT: Troll or not in your case, I've seen crap like that elsewhere.

As for 6th edition, that looks pretty cool, especially since it has the Dark Angels (my favorite space marine chapter) on the cover. Overwatch looks great, especially since you can use it like response fire in Brikwars. The one thing I'm disappointed with is how they treat psychic powers like magic from fantasy.

I read somewhere that all of Warhammer was created as satire to all other "serious" fantasy and sci-fi-realms. Unfortunatelly it kind of backfired and now it is Serious Business - at least to the hardcore gamers.

THey can't say that the guard or whoever is racist. Look at the Vostroyans, the Tallarns, and the Elysians, who seem to be based on Russian and Middle Eastern backgrounds IIRC.

501stCadians wrote:At first glance, the game appears fairly innocent

Because a name like WARhammer sounds totally innocent. Its already obvious that whoever wrote the article has no idea what they're talking about. Besides, if they don't like 40k, then they should at least have enough respect to leave those of us that do alone. Sure, I don't play 40k (mainly because lego drains most of my monies) but that doesn't stop me from using it as inspiration and liking the game regardless. My cousin plays and it was him who first showed me the game, which I think is pretty awesome.

501stCadians wrote:Targeted at children ages 12-16

Really? I don't ever recall seeing 12 year olds that play 40k. I may be mistaken, sure, but I have never met a 12 year old kid that had the desire much less the patience to sit around shelling out all their cash and time to build and paint an army of little plastic figs.

Really? I don't ever recall seeing 12 year olds that play 40k. I may be mistaken, sure, but I have never met a 12 year old kid that had the desire much less the patience to sit around shelling out all their cash and time to build and paint an army of little plastic figs.

12 year olds playing Brikwars? Now that sounds much more reasonable.

A guy working at a game store told me that now and then children/youngsters of that age beg their parents to buy them some starter sets. Usually these miniatures end up on eBay some weeks later. The typical 40k player is about 30 years old by now according to my observations.

Really? I don't ever recall seeing 12 year olds that play 40k. I may be mistaken, sure, but I have never met a 12 year old kid that had the desire much less the patience to sit around shelling out all their cash and time to build and paint an army of little plastic figs.

12 year olds playing Brikwars? Now that sounds much more reasonable.

A guy working at a game store told me that now and then children/youngsters of that age beg their parents to buy them some starter sets. Usually these miniatures end up on eBay some weeks later. The typical 40k player is about 30 years old by now according to my observations.

I don't know, me and my brother got into warhammer about that age. We don't play much anymore, but we still have our stuff, and I've been meaning to get back to it someday.

Really? I don't ever recall seeing 12 year olds that play 40k. I may be mistaken, sure, but I have never met a 12 year old kid that had the desire much less the patience to sit around shelling out all their cash and time to build and paint an army of little plastic figs.

12 year olds playing Brikwars? Now that sounds much more reasonable.

A guy working at a game store told me that now and then children/youngsters of that age beg their parents to buy them some starter sets. Usually these miniatures end up on eBay some weeks later. The typical 40k player is about 30 years old by now according to my observations.

I don't know, me and my brother got into warhammer about that age. We don't play much anymore, but we still have our stuff, and I've been meaning to get back to it someday.

Well, I have seen video battle reports from apocalypse battles where some younger kids were involved in the conflict. I remember one particularly large battle that involved (I think) about 11 or so players on each side in a massive battle that included numerous factions and lasted several days. There were a few kids in that battle; I think you can find some on Youtube.

But yeah, most kids don't have the patience to deal with miniatures like that. I'd say that pre-painted, pre-assembled miniatures like the WOTC D&D series had would have a lot more appeal to kids. My first miniatures games were Star Wars miniatures and Mechwarrior: Dark Age, which I started collecting at around age 10 or 11 because I loved Star Wars and Mechwarrior and they were cheap.